Laziness is the mother of invention
The coffee was on a different floor from the offices. The camera sent a black-and-white image several times a minute to computers on the network. When the web appeared in 1993, the image made it onto the internet and the coffee pot became famous.
The end and the auction
When the department moved to a new building in 2001, the camera was switched off. The coffee pot was bought on eBay by the German magazine Spiegel Online. Today it is a legend that the first “live broadcast” on the web was about coffee.
Legacy
The idea grew into webcams, video calls and IP cameras that now show their picture on your phone.